Disclosed herein is a method for automatically distributing firmware updates in an image production device network, as well as corresponding apparatus and computer-readable medium.
In conventional image production device networks, when to perform a firmware update, the customer has the choice of downloading the firmware file and pushing that file to the device being upgrade, or some devices may offer an automated process of pulling device firmware and installing in the device. The manual method requires periodic human intervention and can be very time consuming for a fleet of image production devices. The automatic method requires each device to have an “outside” connection to the internet to enable this functionality which creates a serious security risk for the customer. The automatic method also increases the bandwidth usage of a company dramatically as each device of the same type is pulling the same firmware file again and again. For example, 100 machines with a 100 MB upgrade file will use 10 GB of bandwidth to perform the upgrade.